BishopAccountability.org
	No Institution Can Police Itself, So We Must Look outside the Church Hierarchy for Solutions to Crisis By Barbara Dorris SNAP June 1, 2010 http://www.snapnetwork.org/snap_statements/2010_statements/053110_no_institution_can_police_itself_so_we_must_look_outside_the_church_hierarchy_for_solutions_to_crisis.htm It is hard to have any faith whatsoever that top Catholic officials can dramatically improve how the Irish church deals with child sex abuse and cover up cases. What's needed is for secular authorities to step up and reign in the nearly limitless power of bishops and reform archaic, predator-friendly laws that enable bishops to ignore or conceal child sex crimes. The two US prelates involved each have troubling track records on abuse. Just a few years ago Boston's O'Malley was found in violation of the US bishops' sex abuse policy, for refusing to make sure that all parishes were offering abuse training. And Dolan let a priest sue his accuser in St. Louis and fought against reforming Wisconsin child sex abuse laws. No institution can police itself, especially not an ancient, rigid, secretive, all-male monarchy with a horrific history of protecting predators and endangering kids. We must look outside a largely complicit church hierarchy for real solutions to this devastating, on-going crisis. (SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 22 years and have more than 9,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org) Contact David Clohessy (314-566-9790 cell, 314-645-5915 home), Barbara Blaine (312-399-4747), Peter Isely (414-429-7259), Barbara Dorris (314-862-7688 home, 314-503-0003 cell)
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